I think sometimes the world doesn’t see enough righteous anger.
That might seem a foolish statement, as you ponder, and think, C’mon, I see righteous anger all over the place. I mean, what Isis does, they consider that to be righteous anger. But I tend to think people rail against the wrong things much of the time. See how Twitter gets all huffy when, say, Steve Harvey flubs the winner to Miss Universe.
ANGER! DISGUST! DISMAY!
But righteous?
Nah…Just misplaced ire.
Instead of railing against fundamental indecency, and iniquities, and casual and flippant cruelty and consciencelessness, we thunder against meaningless stuff.
This arguably wordy preamble brings me to the Tweets I saw coming from the account of Brian McIntyre, who trains and helps manage the most substantive Nebraskan I know of, Terence Crawford.
“I will make sure Team Crawford,Top Rank, Cameron Dunkin, push the envelope in 2016 on the boxing world trust me it’s going to happen, we mad,” he wrote on New Years day.
Mad…I like it.
The other shoe dropped last week, and Team Pacquiao chose the known quality, in Tim Bradley, for a third tango, over an adios fight against “Bud.”
The case can be made that is a sensible choice…and the case can be made that of all the things the world needs, a third Pacquiao-Bradley fight is far down the list.
McIntyre, but of course, would lobby to make all see the light on the latter stance. “They say Terence ain’t marketable, I’ll show the world who’s marketable. We Mad!”
Mad…good.
That should translate into action..and that will benefit the fans. A pissed off Crawford, I think with his technical excellence, he’s one who won’t be prone to fight silly if he fights angry for more segments of more rounds…and, I think, perhaps we should pity the foes who glove up against Crawford in 2016.
McIntyre continued: “We said YES to (Viktor) Postol, (Mauricio) Herrera, and Ruslan (Provodnikov)They ain’t want it. Now imagine if WE would have turned down some of your “marketable favorites.”
Point VERY WELL taken.
Ruslan, especially, is firmly in that “marketable” category. Translated, that mean he’s known, well known, he’s been seen on many networks over many years, and he’s been in fan-friendly, buzzed-about fights. Same can be said for Bradley, which is the main reason he got the fight. He really came on to radar screens of a goodly number of boxing fans’ screens in 2008…so he’s been a “marketable” guy for a long spell. That reason, more than any other, will get a guy a fight..and this MIGHT be the main reason Bud didn’t get the April 9 Pacman fight. Then again, I’m not privy to all decisions being made; it might also be a factor that Crawford, Team Pacquiao MIGHT think, is a mite too explosive, and too much of an “iffy” sort, for a going away fight. With Bradley, they basically know what they got in front of them. And for your last big dance, your exit bout, why go with a “blind date?”
I can answer that…because boxing often doesn’t do a great job at building the future, because ratings are best when old hands, the Bradleys, the Ruslans, the Rios,’ get the call.
New stars would come to the fore more if promoters gave chances to new blood more often…but that often leaves money on the table, in theory and in practice, because, really, a small segment of the population knows who Viktor Postol is. Also, promoters are generally in the business of giving people what they want. And they often get snakebit when they try to give people a less-known quality over a bigger name. Humans are creatures of habit and often choose the devil they know over a variable possibility.
McIntyre answered his own rhetorical question: “We would have been ridiculed!” he Tweeted, in the event that his side had turned down the aforementioned names.
He’s a bit irked. He wanted his kid to get that signature opportunity, that signature payday, and it didn’t happen. I suspect that ire will get transferred into a righteous anger, and a newfound degree of focus and aggression which will translate into this: bad news for the next guy to step in with Crawford.
Now, who might that be?
Hank Lundy, a brash-talking trash-talker from the Philly scene, that’s who. Kid talks a great game and usually delivers a solid showing. He can be streaky, and sometimes gets caught in between styles and strategies, sometimes looking to be a smart boxer and other times realizes his temperament might best be suited to being a banger. Those two face off February 27. They will do a violent waltz in New York, at the Madison Square Garden Theater, in the feature contest. The clash will run on HBO.
And, I wonder, does McIntyre, who thinks quite highly of Bud’s chops, think Lundy is easy work? “Yes and no,” he told me. “He’s slick and reckless at the same time. And his chin gives away on him as the rounds go as the rounds go longer in the fight.”
